There must be a lot of mini-games in Final Fantasy 7 Reborn, right? By my count, there are 21 different activities you can experience as Claude and company make their way out of Kalm and across the planet.
Some are great – Queen's Blood may rival the Final Fantasy VIII triple-player as one of the best additions to the series – but some pale in comparison. Chocobo gliding? 3D fighter? Cactus crush? Austerity? It feels like a lot of it is just filler, with less thought and polish than the obvious cornerstone diversion.
A cursory glance online will reveal that the proliferation of mini-games has divided the audience into two: those who love its variety, challenge, and pointlessness, and those who hate it. “Pfft, it’s just busywork,” they shouted, “a needless waste of time.” Well, it turns out Square Enix has been paying attention to you vocal malcontents, and with Project Final Fantasy Remake Part 3 the developer is keen to take a slightly different approach.
iGamesNews
“As far as Rebirth goes, I think I'm very happy with the number and balance of mini-games in this game,” Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi said in an exclusive interview with iGamesNews. “I think we did a good job of achieving our mini-game goals as well. I'll explain what that was.
“I play a lot of games, a lot of open-world games, and my feeling in playing a lot of these games is that you've got the core mechanics – or their combat system – and most of what you're going to encounter, you can go In most places, most of the things you do are likely to be repeated. [These games] Just use the same mechanism. There are no real changes, nothing new to experience in these different parts of the world. “
He is right. Nowadays, you often see open world games that just offer all the various mini-games available around the world; think of Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, or even The Witcher – the map is filled with all kinds of mini-games. Such mini-games, they're not really “locked” to any one area. The whole world loves Gwent or Olog or whatever; it doesn't necessarily differ from region to region.
But in order to make Final Fantasy 7 Reborn feel “like a whole planet” rather than just “one big open area,” the development team made a conscious decision to place different mini-games in different areas. Not everyone everywhere enjoys the same things, right? The downside is that some players feel there's too much to do and a quality gulf between the best of the best and the worst of the worst.
“Obviously, there's a great combat system in Rebirth – and there's a lot of fun fighting all the different monsters in each area – but I want it to feel like a breath of fresh air when you go into each different area ,” Hamaguchi continued. “When you enter a new area, you feel like there's something new and exciting to do. You can experience something different through the mechanics. That's why we wanted to so much Different mini-games, I feel like we definitely achieved our goals. It's just a breath of fresh air in the open world (or “open realm,” as we call it Rebirth). “
But he knew that doing the same thing over and over again wouldn't necessarily lead to good results. After all, there is a law of diminishing returns, and Final Fantasy has always been known for its desire to innovate rather than rest on its laurels.
“So will we continue to have the same balance in the future? Have we achieved perfection? I think if we did the same thing again in a third game in the series, it wouldn't be as fresh or exciting anymore ,” he said. “I wanted to add some different variations, rearrange things a little bit for the next game and make things look slightly different.
“We don’t just want to create more of the same, we want to create new and exciting experiences.”
There's currently very little information about the third installment – we don't even know its name yet – but it sounds refreshing. It's clear that Hamaguchi, creative director Tetsuya Nomura, and producer Yoshinori Kitase wanted to keep things fresh for the third game. After all, it requires a satisfying climax, and we wouldn't achieve that just by reliving the past, would we?
Final Fantasy 7 Reborn is out now on PS5, and looks even better on PS5 Pro (if you can afford it). Final Fantasy Remake Part 3 doesn't have a release date, but we might get it sooner than we think.
